On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:50:00 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , Goedjn wrote:

The number of deaths caused by
fires caused by electrical failures that
are arc faults which would have been
cleared by an AFCI is too small
to worry about.

Is this just your opinion, or is it substantiated somewhere?

It's an assertion based on a limited amount of research.

The TOTAL number of deaths by fire in residences is
something under 4000/year, in the US.

Those that are ascribed, somehow, to anything at all
to do with the electrical system, work out to
around 300.

Filtering out the ones that aren't
started on bedroom circuts,
ones that wouldn't have been prevented
by an AFCI breaker anyway, and the
rate of failure of the breakers is beyond
my resources, but given the population
of the US in excess as somewhere
in the 260 million range (for the same years
as the above statistics), and arbitrarily picking 50%
for the percentage of lives saved, by AFCIs
that makes the threat to me, personally,
at the most pessimistic,
somewhere around 1.7 million to one.

Even less, when you consider that most
deaths by residential fires kill babys,
mobility impaired elders, and people who
are to drunk or stoned to notice the
fire.

Whether that's worth worrying about is,
of course, a matter of opinion, but I've got
things I'd rather spend money on than
eliminating 2 million to one risks, thanks.

--Goedjn